First Day of School

Mother's Day Tea

Today, I was invited to the school, twice, for Mother's Day Tea. We were treated to some iced tea and cake, and then a song (or two). The first sitting was from the Grade 2's. They sang 2 songs. The first one was "Over the Rainbow" and the second one was "Mom, You're the Best." The sound is very quiet so you will probably need to turn up your volume.







Here is a picture of Isabella and me:




The second sitting was from the Grade 4's. They sang one song and it was "Mom, You're the Best." They were a bit more confident so the sound is a little better.




Here is a picture of me and the twins:

First Day of School

New school year. A brand new school. The same pose as last year. lol

This year:




Last year:

Back to school

Today is the day! Joshua and Katerina start Grade 3 and Isabella is starting Grade 1. She's a big kid now!

Isabella's Kindergarten concert

Last night was her kindergarten concert. Here are a couple of pictures of her:






The gym was decorated with body art of all the kindergarten kids. Here was Isabella's body:




The kids sang 5 songs. In order, "Welcome", "Three Little Muffins", "Country Dancing", "Down by the Bay", and "Colours". The second video gets a little shaky at one point because I tried to zoom in. Sorry about that. So, without further ado, here is the little songbird:

For pyjama day at school

So, on Wednesday afterschool the children inform me that Friday will be pyjama day at school since it will be a half-day, plus it will be a pancake breakfast with Santa. They wanted new PJs. So, I obliged. I used Kwik Sew 3042 for all 3. Joshua and Katerina are size M, and Isabella is size XS. All three are made from flannel.

Joshua's has snowboarders on a blue background. Katerina has skiers on a pink background. Isabella has puppy (teddy bear?) with presents on a red background.

A Kindergarten Christmas

For your listening pleasure, here is Isabella (and class) singing 3 Christmas songs from this morning's "concert".

Jingle Bells


There was a Little Baby


We Wish you a Merry Christmas

School Christmas concert

The twins had their Christmas concert this afternoon, and Isabella and I went to it. Joel will go this evening. Here are some clips that I took on my point-and-click camera. I was in an awkward position and zoomed in so the quality isn't great and the footage is shaky. The Grade 2 classes (3 classes) are combined and they are singing about bells. Katerina has a short singing solo, and they both have short speaking parts.

I've also included a clip from the Grade 5 classes. They are "chimney sweeps."

The musical director, Mrs. McCoy is very creative and makes these concerts fun for both the children performing and the audience.

Later tonight, they go back for an evening performance. Joel will be taking some footage with the camcorder. Hopefully, I'll be able to post some better footage a bit later.

Here are the clips from this afternoon in chronological order.

Christmas Costumes

Isabella's kindergarten class wants to put on a little play for Christmas this year, so her teacher asked if I could make some costumes. I made an angel, a donkey, and 3 wise men. I used McCall's 2340 and as is typical of McCall's it ran big. I had to alter the pattern in length 10 inches! I'm not really happy with the over-robes for the 3 wise men. I said I would alter them this weekend so they aren't so big. The donkey is made from a combination of the pattern for the over-robe and the pattern for the hood from Katerina's Hallowe'en cheetah costume. I self-drafted the ears and attached a tail (which isn't visible in the picture).

Dolls for Kindergarten

These dolls are for Isabella's kindergarten. Her teacher asked me to make them because she wants to explain skin colour to the kids. She picked out the fabric and gave me a sketch of what she wanted.

Hallowe'en at Isabella's Kindergarten

A day at The Prairie Gardens

It was a perfect day for a field trip. All the kindergarten children from Isabella's school went on a field trip to The Prairie Gardens in Bon Accord.

Coming off the 1-hour bus ride:


From the bus, we went to a puppet show:


After the puppet show, we went through the haunted house. Isabella ended up a little too scared but she perked right up on the hayride.


As we were traveling around on the hayride, we saw this ship in the distance. For a couple of dollars (proceeds to charity), a person could shoot a pumpkin towards it out of a cannon. We didn't partake in this activity.


Following the hayride, we went to the petting zoo. We saw sheep, bunnies, and alpacas.






After a good hand sanitizing, we played in a ball pit constructed from hay bales and had a great adventure in the corn maze. On the way to the pumpkin patch, we rocked out with the skeleton band:


The prize of the day was being able to pick a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch.


We all had a nice picnic lunch and some playing in the playground to burn off a bit of after-lunch energy, and then back to school. It was a gorgeous day and lots of fun!